


Homeland

by jenish (phizzle)



Category: Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Genre: AU, Community: slashy_letters, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-23
Updated: 2005-08-23
Packaged: 2017-10-08 01:46:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/71426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phizzle/pseuds/jenish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For blackbird_song. Beta by laurelcrowned.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Homeland

**Author's Note:**

> For blackbird_song. Beta by laurelcrowned.

Frodo was quiet on the ride back. Merry and Pippin had broken into song as they'd left the Havens; it had seemed appropriate, somehow, to leave the Elves and Gandalf and Bilbo with a song. As Merry said, Bilbo would have approved, had he known.

"We chose one of his best," Pippin nodded, and Merry laughed and said that yes, they had, hadn't they?

Sam watched Frodo closely, as he had done so many times on all their journeys together, and said softly, "Do you think you should have gone?"

"No, Sam," Frodo answered, though he spoke more slowly than usual, as if he were trying to wake from a dream, or perhaps enter one. "I couldn't leave you."

Sam blushed. "I wouldn't have taken it as such, unless you'd made it plain," he mumbled, and Frodo smiled. Sam wondered why the mere fact that Frodo had smiled seemed so strange. Unfamiliar, perhaps.

"Sam, I would never _leave_ you. But I couldn't ... I just couldn't." He looked away, watching the light fall through the leaves.

  
"I'm glad he's not going." Pippin looked a little odd from this angle, head propped on one hand, Merry gazing from the region of Pippin's chest. "I thought he would."

Merry nodded, turning to glance at their sleeping cousin. "He left once before. I wonder if he'll come back one day."

Pippin kissed the tip of Merry's nose. "You think far too much," he said, and nestled his cheek into Merry's hair.

  
Sam fidgeted with his saddle for a full minute before moving around to Frodo's side. "Are you sure you wouldn't have -" He stopped, and sighed, and shook his head. Frodo smiled, and it seemed perhaps to have a little more light in it. At times, Sam would look at him, and it was like seeing through stained glass.

"I know I won't be ... well, perhaps I shall find a kind of peace in the Shire yet, Sam." He didn't add what he wanted to, _You're there_, instead he brushed Sam's nose with his own and kissed him, firmly and sweetly. Sam pulled Frodo closer to him and kissed back, touch and press and gentle. Frodo breathed him in.

  
"We should take these back," Merry whispered, one hand in Pippin's curls, the other tracing a line down and over his jaw. The breakfast things, fresh from their washing in the stream, lay forgotten by their side, and Pippin's leg curled around Merry's hips, and they groaned almost in unison.

"In a minute," Pippin breathed, taking Merry's mouth again, and slipping his tongue over and around and under and near and _licking_ and Merry was unable to breathe almost but didn't think he minded. He pressed and licked and breathed through his nose and raggedly and oh it was almost too much, always almost too much.

  
Four hobbits sat on ponies at the borders of the Shire. "Well," said the youngest, "home again."

"Yes," said the eldest, thoughtfully. "I do believe I am."

Their ponies picked their way down along the path, and they passed into their homeland.


End file.
